Act on bogus institutes offering unrecognized med courses: HC

TNN | Feb 28, 2020, 04.32 AM IST

Madurai: Madras high court has dismissed a batch of petitions filed by electropathy practitioners taking cognizance of the fact that they obtained unrecognized medical diploma degrees from unrecognized institutions. The court directed the central and state governments to take immediate action against bogus institutes offering such courses putting at stake the lives of youngsters.

The petitioners had sought to forbear the registrar of Tamil Nadu Homeopathy Medical Council from interfering with their practice by asking them not to practise without registering their diploma certificates in their council. They said the police were carrying out inspections in their clinics. When they approached the council seeking recognition, it was not granted. On perusal of the submissions, Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana observed that most of the certificates produced by the petitioners of their diploma degree were issued by private institutions without affiliation to any statutory body or university recognised by Acts of Parliament. Having joined such courses, they were stopped from claiming any right to register themselves in the statutory council or practise.

Taking cognizance of the fact that Electro Homeopathy System of Medicine (Recognition) Bill has not been passed in Parliament, the judge dismissed the petitions. The judge noted that this was a classic example of students taking up an unrecognized course and being forced to linger around the court even after completing the course successfully, wasting time, money and risk for which they are not responsible. “The right of every Indian citizen to health and the right to receive proper medical care by qualified medical personnel is violated not only by the existence of quacks, but also by the practitioners with unrecognized medical degree. Eventually, the life of the patient is at risk,” the court said adding the quality and faith in the medical education would come down significantly if such unrecognized medical certificates are permitted to be issued.

The judge observed that the union ministry of health and family welfare had issued an order in 2003 directing the state governments and union territories to ensure that no institutions offer any degree or diploma in the stream of medicine which have not been recommended for recognition. Despite this, the institutes in which the petitioners studied were able to offer such course. The issue cannot be weighed lightly and the authorities concerned should be held accountable. The judge directed the central and state governments to take immediate action against such institutes and have a serious check on these issues without any delay. The judge also asked the students to be cautious before choosing a course and institutions.

HC directs disciplinary action against 2 govt officials

TNN | Feb 28, 2020, 04.31 AM IST

Madurai: Taking serious note of the dereliction of duty by a multipurpose health supervisor at the Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH) and an inspector of police of the K Pudur police station in handing over the death certificate and postmortem report to the family of a woman who died due to medical negligence, the Madras high court has directed disciplinary action against them.
S Manimuthu, the husband of Sakthikali, filed a petition seeking Rs 10 lakh compensation for his wife’s death. The petitioner also sought to issue the death certificate and postmortem report. Sakthikali was admitted for delivery at the K Pudur urban primary health centre on September 14, 2019. The duty doctor stated that the delivery would be normal and there is no complication. After the doctor left the hospital, his wife went into labour and the doctor did not return till 11pm.

Few minutes later when the nurse called him inside the UPHC, he noticed that his wife was lying in a pool of blood and immediately he took his wife to the GRH in an ambulance where the doctors declared her brought dead. Based on his complaint, the K Pudur police have registered a case under Section 174 CrPC.

Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana observed that the court had directed the authorities to file an affidavit explaining as to why the reasons for the death of woman was not informed to the petitioner. Refusing to accept the reasons cited by the officials for the delay, the judge observed that officials are pointing fingers at each other without performing their duties. “When it comes to uniformed services and health service, it is round-the-clock service and they have more rigid duty cast upon them than the other public servants,” observed the judge. The judge noted that only after the intervention of this court, the death certificate was handed over to the petitioner. The judge observed that it is abundantly clear that multipurpose supervisor Theenathayalan and inspector of police Muthukumar are prima facie liable for the lapses committed by them in the discharge of their duties. Hence, the judge directed the Madurai deputy director of health services and Madurai city commissioner of police to initiate appropriate departmental action against Theenathayalan and Muthukumar respectively within a period of four weeks.

The judge further directed the commissioner of police to hand over the investigation to some other inspector of police who should file a final report before the jurisdictional magistrate not later than three months.

Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana also took cognizance of a government order (GO) passed by the health and family welfare department notifying the Tamil Nadu Clinical Establishments (Regulation) Rules, 2018, which prescribed minimum facilities of a clinical establishment including the number of staff and equipment. The judge directed the state government to ensure that all hospitals strictly comply with the rules and directed the health secretary to issue circulars to refer the patients to the district headquarters hospitals or other hospitals if the required facilities are not available at any hospitals rather than waiting for the patient to reach a critical condition.

Schools peeved at misspelt Tamil names on hall tickets

TNN | Feb 29, 2020, 04.18 AM IST

Madurai: The Tamil names of class X and XII students at many of the city schools, both government and private, who are writing their board exams next month, are getting mis spelt on their hall tickets. While there is a provision to get it corrected, the issue has inconvenienced teachers and parents.

Nowadays the candidates’ names appear in both English and Tamil on hall tickets and mark sheets. The school is responsible for providing hall tickets, which are downloaded by uploading the students’ information online. “We had many cases where Tamil names were getting misspelt. Even when we type correctly, due to some technical error, the font end up changing at different spots thereby leading to a misspelt name. Sometimes, we also had the candidates’ date of birth going wrong,” said the principal of a private school. Several students and parents said they had to repeatedly ask to make corrections.

“Hall tickets for class XII students were first printed early because of practical examinations. We found that many students had mis spelt names at that time and corrected them temporarily with red ink. However, later in the final nominal roll, all corrections were made and it was resolved. But, it was definitely a troublesome work,” said a teacher at a corporation school. Schools also said they were being blamed for an issue that is not in their control. “Parents think we are the ones making the mistake and many of them get easily annoyed. The students are inconvenienced when they have to repeatedly check such basic things,” added the teacher.

Meanwhile, education officials maintained that it was a matter for the heads of schools to handle and they had no part in it. “Even if it is an issue now, there is ample time to correct and processes are in place to ensure least disturbance. What matters is what appears on the final mark sheets. Till then, there is plenty of scope for making corrections,” said a senior district education official.

Tamil Nadu: Mount-Poonamallee Road could turn into OMR 2.0 for IT firms

TNN | Feb 27, 2020, 05.53 AM IST

Poonamallee, the western gateway to Chennai, could soon emerge as the city’s second IT highway. The arterial road is attracting several realtors interested in developing IT parks.

Interestingly, a new trend of housing projects being transformed into office spaces for IT firms is shaping up, with metro rail connectivity being the key driver to spark interest in real estate along the Mount-Poonamallee Road.

At least two residential projects on land parcels at Porur and Poonamallee, which had applied for planning permission with the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) for housing projects, were withdrawn to build multi-storeyed buildings to accommodate IT companies.

R Murugesan, MD of ARAM Realty, said plans are afoot to convert a 15-acre plot at Poonamallee into an IT special economic zone. “We are developing an IT SEZ spread over 1.3 million square feet on the land parcel, which was earmarked for a residential- cum-mall complex three years ago,” he said.

In fact, the developer had applied for planning approval to construct apartments, but changed his plans in the wake of the state government announcing a metro rail corridor linking Poonamallee with the rest of the city. “This has transformed the dynamics of utilising it for office space to house IT companies,” he said.

A study conducted to explore the commercial potential of Mount-Poonamallee Road said that the metro rail line has made Poonamallee accessible for city residents as the travel time will be reduced. “Even rentals would be 50% lesser than IT parks on OMR and the core city that could attract mid-level multinational companies, BPOs, IT and ITES firms,” Murugesan, former CEO of Shriram IT SEZ said.

The 15km stretch between St Thomas Mount and Poonamallee is witnessing an expansion of office space, with three IT parks offering 3.5 million square foot office space under construction at Porur.

While the Mount-Poonamallee stretch has better groundwater availability as compared to OMR that depends on tankers for water supply, the proposed bus mofussil terminus for west-bound buses at Thirumazhisai

and the second airport at Parandur off Chennai - Bengaluru highway could prove to be the icing on the cake.

Aslam Mohamed, joint managing director of Allied Investments and Housing Pvt Limited, who is executing a joint venture IT park project at Porur, said that their facility will be coming up in an area of 7,00,000 sq ft.

“We sought planning permission from CMDA to construct an apartment complex in 2017. We switched over to building an IT park after the declaration of metro rail link to Porur,” he said. The development comes against the backdrop of the city recording high absorptions of commercial space in recent years -- more than 60 lakh square feet in 2019. Sanjay Chugh, city head, ANAROCK Property Consultants, said the rental yield at Poonamallee was 3.15% last year.

“As long as connectivity via metro rail improves, there are higher chances of more projects coming up beyond Poonamallee,” he said.

Another real estate consultant, Savills, said that there has also been a rising interest from co-living operators for this micro market given the sheer size of the workforce in the locality.

“We are witnessing upcoming residential developments around these large IT parks, primarily to cater to the workforce, extending beyond Porur junction,” said Anup Vasanth, the firm’s Chennai managing director.

With realtors showing preference for setting up IT parks in the suburbs, software companies could soon have a new address – OMR 2.0

Madras high court heat on colleges renting out campus for commercial gains

TNN | Feb 27, 2020, 08.42 AM IST

CHENNAI: Educational institutions renting out their auditoriums for commercial purposes could land in trouble.

Taking note of complaints that campus facilities of private educational institutions are being rented out for commercial purposes, despite these institutions availing themselves of concession in electricity tariff and exemption from property tax, Madras high court has initiated a suo motu proceeding based on a PIL.

When the plea came up for hearing on Wednesday, special government pleader E Manoharan submitted that on February 20 the Supreme Court had held that there was nothing wrong in governments fixing higher tariff for self-financing educational institutions categorising them as a commercial entity and that no undue preference was being given to state-run and state-aided institutions.

The pleader then sought some more time to file a counter affidavit with supporting documents.

Recording the same A division bench of Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice R Hemalatha adjourned the plea to April 9 for further hearing.

The issue pertains to an order passed by Justice N Kirubakaran dated November 24, 2016 pointing out the issue of educational institutions renting out their premises for commercial purposes despite availing exemption or subsidy from various authorities including TANGEDCO and local bodies for running the institution.

The single judge forwarded a note to the Chief Justice of the court suggesting the need to suo motu initiate a PIL to deal the issue.

Based on the note, the division bench has initiated the proceeding. "When such a subsidy is given for educational institutions by electricity board and other government authorities, the concession should be strictly used only for educational purposes and conducting functions in connection with education or for development of education," the single judge said in his note.

The judge made the observation on the plea seeking the court to restrain South India Artistes Association (SIAA) from conducting a meeting at the premises of Loyola College, Chennai.

Alliance Air to introduce business class in Chennai – Jaffna flight

TNN | Feb 28, 2020, 08.51 PM IST

CHENNAI: After introducing daily direct flights to Jaffna, Alliance Air has announced that it will introduce a business class on its flights from Chennai to Jaffna starting March 7.

The first row of seats in ATR plane will be marked as business class. And this is the first time the airline with an all economy configuration across its fleet is introducing business class.

The business class segment will offer enhanced meal options, hot and cold beverages, separate check in, cold or hot wet towels, comfort cushions, extra check-in baggage, newspapers and magazines, extra leg room in the dedicated first row for the business class & lounge access for passengers.

One-way business class fares from Chennai to Jaffna will start at Rs 16,000, plus taxes and levies. Jaffna- Chennai fares will start at $200 plus applicable taxes and levies.

MTC reduces frequencies of AC buses during weekends

TNN | Feb 29, 2020, 04.18 AM IST

Chennai: The Metropolitan Transport Corporation has reduced frequencies of new air-conditioned buses during weekends.
Nearly 29 out of the 48 new AC buses will not be operated on Sundays so that that they can serviced at depots as a part of weekly maintenance drives. The other 19 buses will not run on Saturdays.

This includes buses operated along routes 102 (Kelambakkam-Broadway), 570 (Kelambakkam-Koyambedu), 21G (Tambaram-Brodway) and 91 (Thiruvanmiyur-Tambaram).

Orders were issued to all depot managers regarding this on February 20. TOI has a copy of the order that came into effect from February 22.

A senior MTC official clarified that that there were no intentions to cut down frequencies but maintenance works were unavoidable.

“Weekends will be the best time to service the buses as crowd is less compared to regular working days,” the official said.

The 48 buses had hit city roads in January this year. Ticket cost on these buses is higher compared to regular MTC buses.

Passengers are charged Rs 15 to Rs 60 per head for travelling in AC buses. On an average, an AC bus collects Rs 14,000 per day, according to official data.

Besides cost, confusion over bus colours has deterred many from opting for AC buses, said G Venkatraman, a resident of Tambaram.

While all new buses were painted red, grey colour was chosen for AC buses.